Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

Silicon Valley scrooges paid staff $1.21 an hour in a 122-hour week

you better hope that nobody at the NSA knows anything about history or France - so you're probably safe

Re: By the numbers...

The 14th amendment and a civil war ?

Caterham Seven 160 review: The Raspberry Pi of motoring

Re: What, no cupholders?

More people used cupholders instead of wedging the cup between their legs - or more people used cars without cupholders and concentrated on driving ?

SKYPE has the HOTS for my NAKED WIFE

Re: Disable it.

And you check every line of all the other kernel modules to make sure none of then sneakily include a webcam driver - or you could put a bit of black tape over it.

Jeff Bezos rolls up another $437m, lights Amazon's cigar with it

I said running cloud servers wasn't Google's core business. They do a lot of it, but mostly because they already have data centers, they wouldn't sacrifice the ad business for it

Last man standing.

You know all that money they lost competing with bricks+mortar bookstores and other online book sellers? Where are their book competitors now?

And the $14Bn they are making selling electronics. Radio shack are gone, Best Buy won't be long, even ebay is looking bad.

They can spend a lot more than Rackspace, Google don't have cloud as a core business - their only real competition is Microsoft.

Microsoft EU warns: If you have ties to the US, Feds can get your data

Re: @kmac499

How does not being offshore help?

The US govt can demand data held on Microsoft (Or IBM, or Amazon or Oracle or any other US corp) owned servers in Britain just as easily

Guns don't scare people, hackers do: Americans fear identity theft more than shooting sprees

Re: People hate facts

Presumably if the responses were sufficiently angry (and violent) the problem would solve itself ?

Warning to those who covet the data of Internet of Precious Things

Re: "Consent on the basis of such policies can hardly be considered to be informed"

They just replaced the electric meters here with ones which constantly phone home with your usage. There was informed consent on the new smart meters - you could have one, or you could use candles.

Preview redux: Microsoft ships new Windows 10 build with 7,000 changes

And the "not getting the joke award goes to ....."

Windows 10 ?

Did I miss 9?

Or instead of skipping to every 2nd release are we now waiting for it to double?

When do I update to Windows 14

Apple grapple: Congress kills FBI's Cupertino crypto kybosh plan

Re: Odd

When the FBI contributes as much to re-election campaigns as the movie studios - then they can get their own laws passed

NSA approves Samsung Knox for use by TOP SECRET g-men

Re: I would have hoped

How are they going to make their own Android when anybody who dabbles in Linux or opensource is a commie terrorist ? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/03/nsa_xkeyscore_stasi_scandal/

Won't somebody think of the children

Won't kidnappers now all switch to this phone?

And without a front-door the legitimate law enforcement authorites won't be able to protect us from kidnapper terrorists

Redmond top man Satya Nadella: 'Microsoft LOVES Linux'

Re: Well, unless you count prostitutes.

Or the more traditional: "If it flies, floats or fscks - lease it"

Re: What do they care if you run linux?

They will simply charge you a per-seat not-using-SQL-server licence fee, the same way that Dell charge you more for buying a laptop without Windows

Re: What do they care if you run linux?

Will they be suing any of their customers that use Linux for patent infringement?

How many hundreds of undisclosed patents was it that Linux infringed?

Retraining

Memo from bill.g to nadella.s

Remember; Women=Good, Linux=bad, you seem to have got things confused

ICO warns UK broadcasters over filming using drones

Re: Where's me 12-bore?

> I'm not worried about people spying on me

But what about when you commit terrorism-related offences, like watering your garden during a hosepipe ban or putting out your recycling bin before 7:00am ?

Re: Where's me 12-bore?

The obvious British solution is for you to have a model aircraft (note a flying model aircraft not a UAV) - say a large petrol engined Spitfire, with working guns, and send that up to deal with the blighters.

tally-ho

China is ALREADY spying on Apple iCloud users, claims watchdog

It would probably be against the law - unless you are a law enforcement agency, or involved in national security. Or, in the uk, a local allotments committee with a copy of RIPA

Post-PC era? PAH! Apple says Macs OUTSOLD iPads in Q4

Share repurchase

I assume there are legal/accounting reasons but

Does it really make sense to announce record profits, record growth and then go out and buy your own shares?

Shouldn't you say you are going to hire Balmer as CEO, license Clippy as new Apple logo, that you are switching to VMS - and then go out and buy your shares?

The 'fun-nification' of computer education – good idea?

Re: I believe the saying is

How much do ox-bow lakes or the causes of the civil war come up in everyday life ?

Baby Beebers

So the reason that software engineering hasn't reached the same level as civil engineering isn't that it is a lot more complicated than looking up the standard beam profile from the standards book to bolt to the standard bolt from the standards books - it's because of the BBC micro?

So that will explain why it is completely professional in other countries and no US software project ever overruns, why Japanese software has taken over the world and why Swedish code is as reliable as a Volvo.

'Hmm, why CAN'T I run a water pipe through that rack of media servers?'

Re: Marmite

You can make a solution of quinine in ethanol lase.

The gin and tonic laser was invented 50 years ago

'George Orwell was an optimist. Show me a search history, I'll show you a perv or a crook'

Re: Why does Microsoft want people to stop talking about Windows?

"And since no human being has any QA input into these processes these days, computer says "boop" and nixed all the content."

So the (almost) monopoly supplier of operating systems and business packages is merely incompetent rather than malicious - that's good to know.

Happiness economics is bollocks. Oh, UK.gov just adopted it? Er ...

Re: Misery

"but there's nothing much we can do about the "happiness" parameter and that's why it never really changes".

Religion, drugs, drink - the drop in the usage of these is the reason that happiness as fallen for the peasants in the last 1000years

Re: It can be done

Growing up in a less-than-picturesque mining village near Sheffield in the 80s I believe you - funnily enough the only place I have lived where the people were happier and friendlier was Belfast.

I think it's the anywhere is better than London phenomena

Re: I attempt to maximise the length time I get to spend lying on my arse.

Energy efficiency - lying on your arse is a minimum energy configuration.

Any arse raising movement involves expenditure of energy, increase in entropy, waste heat into the environment, global warming and the eventual heat death of the universe.

For your valiant fight to remain lying on your arse and saving the planet - we salute you.

Re: Declaration of Independence

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of cheeseburgers" was the first attempt, but was blocked by a lobbyist from the booze industry

Re: Too much of a good thing

Anything is better than GDP.

When the best thing you can do to boost your per-capita GDP is have a car crash - people buy 2 new cars, have expensive medical treatment, sue each other, pay higher insurance premiums = all GDP.

Or smoke all your life, get lung cancer and have a transplant, preferably at US healthcare hospital rates. Then you need to think of a better economic metric.

Are you a gun owner? Let us in OR ELSE, say Blighty's top cops

The police have often been criticised for the way they treat certain inner city ethnic minority youth compared to the deference shown by the village bobby to the local squire.

4am raids by tactical firearm units on the landed gentry to check their shotgun cabinets are merely a new equal opportunity policy aimed at treating everyone the same.

Re: Democracy? Republic? Where?

"In the US, for now, the police need a warrant to come inside a dwelling they are not invited into."

Unless somebody makes a 911 call (from the payphone in the police station) - in which case they can send in a no-knock swat team with assault rifles and a shoot first policy.

Whisper chief: 'We're not infallible but strive to do right by our anonymous users'

That's all right then

"For example, if we believe a user may pose a threat to their community, we will take appropriate action."

If you have nothing to hide comrade-citizen you have nothing to fear.

HBO shocks US pay TV world: We're down with OTT. Netflix says, 'Gee'

On the news this morning, the AVERAGE family pays $199/month for phone+cable+internet.

>How can cable possibly compete with that?

By blocking/throttling Netflix?

Re: I can handle a couple more subscriptions.

The only thing I keep the VPN for on iPlayer are Sherlock, Dr Who, Qi, Have I got News for You. And Dr Who is no longer worth watching.

At least you can iPlayer Radio4 from the colonies

Cable is one of the few things that is a much worse deal in the US - because they never had to compete with decent broadcast TV.

Basic cable package usually costs $100/month (whatever they claim in the ad they will find some extra charges to make it $100/month). Then they still do the package layering, so if you want decent movies you have to buy the family package first and then the crap movie package and then the decent movie pack. They mostly survive on having sport tied up.

$7 for Netflix to watch a decent selection of shows with no ads whenever has cut the cable, adding HBO for another $10 is a definite

US government fines Intel's Wind River over crypto exports

Re: Well, if the British way of doing things is anything to go by

So the Russians and Chinese are too dumb to write their own crypto and wouldn't be able to keep secrets from Uncle Sam if they didn't buy Intel's off the shelf stuff - while at the same time being super cyber-ninjas (and cossacks?) who can break into any US government or corporate system unless we give the NSA more powers to protect us?

Re: I cant believe it.

The intel CPUs are fabbed in Kiryat Gat in Israel, so are Intel fined for exporting CPUs to Israel that were made in Israel ?

Stranger things have happened - we were once refused export permission for a bit of kit from the US to the UK because it contained an ARM processor

Don't shoot – I'm un-ARM-ed! Samsung whips out Intel Chromebook 2

Compatible

Now I can finally run the same viruses as everyone else

FBI boss: We don't want a backdoor, we want the front door to phones

Re: Pencils

And clothes - people can use them to conceal weapons.

If you have nothing to hide - you have nothing to fear

Martha Lane Fox: Yeuch! The Internet is made by men?!?

Re: Barking

Australia has compulsory voting - it also has the world's largest collection of penises (penii?) drawn on ballot papers

Coincidence ?

'Theoretical' Nobel economics explain WHY the tech industry's such a damned mess

The kingdom of Merkia ?

Ada Lovelace Day: Meet the 6 women who gave you the 'computer'

I meant more generally, the educational idea that there aren't women in programming because there are no women in programming for them to aspire to - and so promoting the activities of an 18th century women will somehow "enable" them.

Never sure about this "role model" idea.

So I can do programming because Turing was a man?

Except he was a posh southerner and gay - so really only 25% the same - and I hadn't heard of him until I was at university.

It's like claiming I am somehow politically empowered because Cameron is a man.

Stop ROBOT exploitation, cry striking Foxconn workers

Re: Rise of the machines.

Or, what jobs there are, move back to the consumer countries.

If you needed 1000s of people on an assembly line putting together phones then you do it in a country where can pay $1/day not $15/hour. If you have a line of robots doing the job and a couple of techs being paid $25/hour to service the robots then you save the shipping cost, get some political capital and put the factory near the customer.

The main reason for iPhones being made in China today is the surrounding infrastructure of suppliers, not wage costs. Try finding a site in the US where you have battery makers, screen makers, PCB assemblers and packaging makers all in the same city.

Re: Hmmmm

The future will be organising those machines.

Pick and place robots of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your SCSI chains.

South Korea faces $1bn bill after hackers raid national ID database

Re: British Database

The point is that if you do issue a single number to everyone and use it for everything you can't assume it's a secret. There is no problem with using SIN as a unique key as long as you don't also think you can use it as a secret key.

It's like saying, hackers broke into a phone box and have obtained the names and phones numbers of everyone in the city listed in the phone book

Radiohead(ache): BBC wants dead duck tech in sexy new mobes

Re: Ofcom .. concluding that it would be unfair to make the UK’s then 4.6 million receivers obsolete

Just rented a car with a DAB radio, every few minutes it would repeat a few seconds of the audio.

I thought my mind was going until I listened to "just-a-minute". Quite a surreal experience listening to just a minute with a 2second reverb - almost made it entertaining.